Gorgeous, if rather flawed. (Here’s the LGBT Weekly link.)

When you begin a novel with “I have a story that will make you believe in God,” you have made a bold promise that is very likely to be left unfulfilled. But that is how Yann Martel begins the Booker Prize-winningLife of Pi, with the narrator explaining that an old man has told him this story with just such a lofty goal.

The film version of Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee and written by David Magee, begins similarly, with Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) telling his life story to a writer (Rafe Spall), who had heard from an old man in India that Pi’s story would make him believe in God.

That the film failed to make me believe in God, and I venture to bet that it failed to convert anyone else, is not surprising. But I was surprised that it was only the film’s photography that inspired and moved, while the story left me rather disturbed. Continue…